If you see any incorrect dates or errors, please provide
me with accurate information, Thank you.

Marconi Scientists Mystery

In the 1980's over two dozen science graduates and experts
working for Marconi or Plessey Defence Systems died in mysterious circumstances,
most appearing to be 'suicides.' The MOD denied these scientists had been
involved in classified Star Wars Projects and that the deaths were in any
way connected. Judge for yourself...

March 1982: Professor Keith Bowden, 46

--Expertise: Computer programmer and scientist at Essex
University engaged in work for Marconi, who was hailed as an expert on
super computers and computer-controlled aircraft.

--Circumstance: Fatal car crash when his vehicle went
out of control across a dual carriageway and plunged onto a disused railway
line. Police maintained he had been drinking but family and friends all
denied the allegation.

Coroner's verdict: Accident.

April 1983: Lt-Colonel Anthony Godley, 49

--Expertise: Head of the Work Study Unit at the Royal
College of Military Science.

--Circumstance: Disappeared mysteriously in April 1983
without explanation. Presumed dead.

March 1985: Roger Hill, 49

--Expertise: Radar designer and draughtsman with Marconi.

--Circumstance: Died by a shotgun blast at home.

Coroner's verdict: Suicide.

November 19, 1985: Jonathan Wash, 29

--Expertise: Digital communications expert who had worked
at GEC and at British Telecom's secret research centre at Martlesham Heath,
Suffolk.

--Circumstance: Died as a result of falling from a hotel
room in Abidjan, West Africa, while working for British Telecom. He had
expressed fears that his life was in danger.

--Circumstance: Death by 74m (240ft.) fall from Clifton
Suspension Bridge, Bristol. Police report on the body mentioned a needle-sized
puncture wound on the left buttock, but this was later dismissed as being
a result of the fall. Dajibhai had been looking forward to starting a new
job in the City of London and friends had confirmed that there was no reason
for him to commit suicide. At the time of his death he was in the last
week of his work with Marconi.

Coroner's verdict: Open.

October 1986: Arshad Sharif, 26

--Expertise: Reported to have been working on systems
for the detection of submarines by satellite.

--Circumstance: Died as a result of placing a ligature
around his neck, tying the other end to a tree and then driving off in
his car with the accelerator pedal jammed down. His unusual death was complicated
by several issues: Sharif lived near Vimal Dajibhai in Stanmore, Middlesex,
he committed suicide in Bristol and, inexplicably, had spent the last night
of his life in a rooming house. He had paid for his accommodation in cash
and was seen to have a bundle of high-denomination banknotes in his possession.
While the police were told of the banknotes, no mention was made of them
at the inquest and they were never found. In addition, most of the other
guests at the rooming house worked at British Aerospace prior to working
for Marconi, Sharif had also worked at British Aerospace on guided weapons
technology.

--Circumstance: Found dead in his flat in with his feet
bound and a plastic bag over his head. Rope was tied around his body, coiling
four times around his neck.

Coroner's verdict: Accident.

January 12, 1987: Dr. John Brittan, 52

--Expertise: Scientist formerly engaged in top secret
work at the Royal College of Military Science at Shrivenham, Oxfordshire,
and later deployed in a research department at the MOD.

--Circumstance: Death by carbon monoxide poisoning in
his own garage, shortly after returning from a trip to the US in connection
with his work.

Coroner's verdict: Accident.

February 1987: David Skeels, 43

--Expertise: Engineer with Marconi.

--Circumstance: Found dead in his car with a hosepipe
connected to the exhaust.

Coroner's verdict: Open.

February 1987: Victor Moore, 46

--Expertise: Design Engineer with Marconi Space and Defence
Systems.

--Circumstance: Died from an overdose.

Coroner's verdict: Suicide.

February 22, 1987: Peter Peapell, 46

--Expertise: Scientist at the Royal College of Military
Science. He had been working on testing titanium for it's resistance to
explosives and the use of computer analysis of signals from metals.

--Circumstance: Found dead allegedly from carbon monoxide
poisoning, in his Oxfordshire garage. The circumstances of his death raised
some elements of doubt. His wife had found him on his back with his head
parallel to the rear car bumper and his mouth in line with the exhaust
pipe, with the car engine running. Police were apparently baffled as to
how he could have manoeuvred into the position in which he was found.

Coroner's verdict: Open.

April 1987: George Kountis age unknown.

--Expertise: Systems Analyst at Bristol Polytechnic.

--Circumstance: Drowned the same day as Shani Warren
(see below) - as the result of a car accident, his upturned car being found
in the River Mersey, Liverpool.

--Expertise: Personal assistant in a company called Micro
Scope, which was taken over by GEC Marconi less than four weeks after her
death.

--Circumstance: Found drowned in 45cm. (18in) of water,
not far from the site of David Greenhalgh's death fall. Warren died exactly
one week after the death of Stuart Gooding and serious injury to Greenhalgh.
She was found gagged with a noose around her neck. Her feet were also bound
and her hands tied behind her back.

Coroner's verdict: Open. (It was said that Warren had
gagged herself, tied her feet with rope, then tied her hands behind her
back and hobbled to the lake on stiletto heels to drown herself.)

April 10, 1987: Stuart Gooding, 23

--Expertise: Postgraduate research student at the Royal
College of Military Science.

--Circumstance: Fatal car crash while on holiday in Cyprus.
The death occurred at the same time as college personnel were carrying
out exercises on Cyprus.

Coroner's verdict: Accident.

April 24, 1987: Mark Wisner, 24

--Expertise: Software engineer at the MOD.

--Circumstance: Found dead on in a house shared with
two colleagues. He was found with a plastic sack around his head and several
feet of cling film around his face. The method of death was almost identical
to that of Richard Pugh some three months earlier.

Coroner's verdict: Accident.

March 30, 1987: David Sands, 37

--Expertise: Senior scientist working for Easams of Camberley,
Surrey, a sister company to Marconi. Dr. John Brittan had also worked at
Camberley.

--Circumstance: Fatal car crash when he allegedly made
a sudden U-turn on a dual carriageway while on his way to work, crashing
at high speed into a disused cafeteria. He was found still wearing his
seat belt and it was discovered that the car had been carrying additional
petrol cans. None of the

'normal' reasons for a possible suicide could be found.

Coroner's verdict; Open.

May 3, 1987: Michael Baker, 22

--Expertise: Digital communications expert working on
a defence project at Plessey; part-time member of Signals Corps SAS.

--Circumstance: Fatal accident owhen his car crashed
through a barrier near Poole in Dorset.

Coroner's verdict: Misadventure.

June 1987: Jennings, Frank, 60.

--Expertise: Electronic Weapons Engineer with Plessey.

--Circumstance: Found dead from a heart attack.

No inquest.

January 1988: Russell Smith, 23

--Expertise: Laboratory technician with the Atomic Energy
Research Establishment at Harwell, Essex.

--Circumstance: Died as a result of a cliff fall at Boscastle
in Cornwall.

--Circumstance: Found dead at his home in Harpenden,
Hertfordshire at the wheel of his car with a hosepipe connected to the
exhaust. A St.Alban's coroner said that Knight's woman friend, Miss Narmada
Thanki (who also worked with him at Marconi) had found three suicide notes
left by him which made clear his intentions. Miss Thanki had mentioned
that Knight disliked his work but she did not detect any depression that
would have driven him to suicide.

Coroner's verdict: Suicide.

August 1988: Alistair Beckham, 50

--Expertise: Software engineer with Plessey Defence Systems.

--Circumstance: Found dead after being electrocuted in
his garden shed with wires connected to his body.

Coroner's verdict: Open.

August 22, 1988: Peter Ferry, 60

--Expertise: Retired Army Brigadier and an Assistant
Marketing Director with Marconi.

--Circumstance: Found on 22nd or 23rd August 1988 electrocuted
in his company flat with electrical leads in his mouth.

Coroner's verdict: Open

September 1988: Andrew Hall, 33

--Expertise: Engineering Manager with British Aerospace.

--Circumstance: Carbon monoxide poisoning in a car with
a hosepipe connected to the exhaust.

"He was the world's leading expert on staphylococcal
alpha toxins," according to Conrad Wagner, professor of biochemistry
at Vanderbilt and a close friend of Professor Harshman. "He also deeply
cared for other people and was always eager to help his students and colleagues."

--Circumstances of Death: Complications of diabetes

July 10, 1998: Elizabeth A. Rich, M.D., 46

--Expertise: An associate professor with tenure in the
pulmonary division of the Department of Medicine at CWRU and University
Hospitals of Cleveland. She was also a member of the executive committee
for the Center for AIDS Research and directed the biosafety level 3 facility,
a specialized laboratory for the handling of HIV, virulent TB bacteria,
and other infectious agents.

--Circumstances of Death: Killed in a traffic accident
while visiting family in Tennessee

September 1998: Jonathan Mann, 51

--Expertise: Founding director of the World Health Organisation's
global Aids programme and founded Project SIDA in Zaire, the most comprehensive
Aids research effort in Africa at the time, and in 1986 he joined the WHO
to lead the global response against Aids. He became director of WHO's global
programme on Aids which later became the UNAids programme. He then became
director of the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights,
which was set up at Harvard School of Public Health in 1993. He caused
controversy earlier this year in the post when he accused the US National
Institutes of Health of violating human rights by failing to act quickly
on developing Aids vaccines.

--Circumstances: Died in the Swissair Flight 111 crash
in Canada.

April 15, 2000: Walter W. Shervington, M.D., 62

--Expertise: An extensive writer/ lecturer/ researcher
about mental health and AIDS in the African American community.

--Circumstances of Death: Died of cancer at Tulane Medical
Hospital.

July 16, 2000: Mike Thomas, 35

--Expertise: A microbiologist at the Crestwood Medical
Center in Huntsville.

--Circumstances of Death: Died a few days after examining
a sample taken from a 12-year-old girl who was diagnosed with meningitis
and survived.

December 25, 2000: Linda Reese, 52

--Expertise: Microbiologist working with victims of meningitis.

--Circumstances of Death: Died three days after she studied
a sample from Tricia Zailo, 19, a Fairfield, N.J., resident who was a sophomore
at Michigan State University. Tricia Zailo died Dec. 18, a few days after
she returned home for the holidays.

May 7 2001: Professor Janusz Jeljaszewicz

--Expertise: Expert in Staphylococci and Staphylococcal
Infections. His main scientific interests and achievements were in the
mechanism of action and biological properties of staphylococcal toxins,
and included the immunomodulatory properties and experimental treatment
of tumours by Propionibacterium.

November 2001: Yaacov Matzner, 54

--Expertise: Dean of the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical
School in Jerusalem and chairman of the Israel Society of Hematology and
Blood Transfusions, was the son of Holocaust survivors. One of the world's
experts on blood diseases including familiar Mediterranean fever (FMF),
Matzner conducted research that led to a genetic test for FMF. He was working
on cloning the gene connected to FMF and investigating the normal physiological
function of amyloid A, a protein often found in high levels in people with
blood cancer.

--Circumstances of Death: Professors Yaacov Matzner and
Amiram Eldor were on their way back to Israel via Switzerland when their
plane came down in dense forest three kilometres short of the landing field.

November 2001: Professor Amiram Eldor, 59

--Expertise: Head of the haematology institute, Tel Aviv's
Ichilov Hospital and worked for years at Hadassah-University Hospital's
haematology department but left for his native Tel Aviv in 1993 to head
the haematology institute at Ichilov Hospital. He was an internationally
known expert on blood clotting especially in women who had repeated miscarriages
and was a member of a team that identified eight new anti-clotting agents
in the saliva of leeches.

--Circumstances of Death: Professors Yaacov Matzner and
Amiram Eldor were on their way back to Israel via Switzerland when their
plane came down in dense forest three kilometres short of the landing field.

November 6, 2001: Jeffrey Paris Wall, 41

--Expertise: He was a biomedical expert who held a medical
degree, and he also specialized in patent and intellectual property.

--Circumstances of Death: Mr. Walls body was found sprawled
next to a three-story parking structure near his office. He had studied
at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Nov. 16, 2001: Don C. Wiley, 57

--Expertise: One of the foremost microbiologists in the
United States. Dr. Wiley, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Harvard
University, was an expert on how the immune system responds to viral attacks
such as the classic doomsday plagues of HIV, ebola and influenza.

--Circumstances of Death: He had just bought tickets
to take his son to Graceland the following day. He had just left a banquet
for fellow researchers in Memphis. Police found his rental car on a bridge
outside Memphis, Tenn. His body was found Dec. 20 in the Mississippi River.
his family said he was in perfect health. There was no autopsy. Forensic
experts said he may have had a dizzy spell and have fallen off the bridge.
Why did he leave the keys in the ignition and his lights on? Why was Wiley´s
car facing in the opposite direction from his father´s house, which
was only a short distance away?

Nov. 21, 2001: Vladimir Pasechnik, 64

--Expertise: World-class microbiologist and high-profile
Russian defector; defected to the United Kingdom in 1989, played a huge
role in Russian biowarfare and helped to figure out how to modify cruise
missiles to deliver the agents of mass biological destruction.

--Background: founded Regma Biotechnologies company in
Britain, a laboratory at Porton Down, the country´s chem-bio warfare
defense establishment. Regma currently has a contract with the U.S. Navy
for "the diagnostic and therapeutic treatment of anthrax".

--Circumstances of Death: The pathologist who did the
autopsy, and who also happened to be associated with Britain´s spy
agency, concluded he died of a stroke. Details of the postmortem were not
revealed at an inquest, in which the press was given no prior notice. Colleagues
who had worked with Pasechnik said he was in good health.